Series post-mortem, Day 2: Providing a little context to the questions that the Sharks can count on hearing

SAN JOSE — The Sharks aren’t getting to the annual locker clean-out that every team undergoes at some point until Friday, so nothing really new from the team at this point.

I spent the day trying to put together a reality check on what I figure are the three biggest or broadest questions on anyone’s mind, and then provide a bit of a reality check: Is it time to blow up the roster? Should the Sharks change coache? Is Doug Wilson on the hot seat?

Do not go to this link looking for answers. They aren’t there. What you’ll find, I hope, is a little context.

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Beyond that, nothing really new to add here. I just thought the one comments thread had gone on quite long enough and nobody would mind a break at this point.

More tomorrow, of course.

David Pollak

David Pollak has been following the NHL forever and at the Mercury News as an editor or reporter since 1987. For almost a decade he wrote about the Sharks as the paper's Fan in the Stands before joining the sports department in 2001. He became the Sharks beat writer before the 2007-08 season and began this blog at that time. You can also follow him on Twitter at @PollakOnSharks.

Well today is the day for all of the excuses to be released by Doug Wilson. I can’t wait to hear why we shouldn’t expect and major changes and why we should all be optimistic about the triumphant return of Thornton and Marleau next season.

n2y2

Hertl and Nieto strike me as quality players coming up through the Sharks’ draft.

Clemenza

Since you can’t obey the rules around here about ramming the same subject home over & over, I look forward to your next ban with great anticipation. Let’s hope this time it’s permanent.

Hockeynut

Two different sports I realize this but compare the Sharks
to the Warriors in the post season.
Golden State has 10x the heart and desire to win as evidenced by this
series with the Clippers. You talk about
losing Vlasic for a game and a half.
Last night already missing their starting center for most of this series,
they lose their best back up center to a ridiculous injury that never should
have happened last night. Yet, against
the odds they persevered and now forced a seventh game in LA for the
series. Think about this, in basketball you
only have 12 guys on the active roster as compared to 20 in hockey and really
only 8-10 of them are NBA caliber talent.
If you lose 1 that’s bad. If you
lose 2? That is 20% of your “usable”
talent. That would be like trying to play without two
top defenseman and two forwards. Yet, the Warriors press on and the Sharks are
going home. Says a lot about how far desire
can take you doesn’t it? Not saying that
the Warriors are going to win in LA and advance tomorrow, but who knows? At least we know every night they gave their
all against a higher seed.

Now to the real purpose of my post today. I think the Sharks are in a position where
the braintrust is going to have to make some real hard decisions. I think Wilson needs to pull a “Tyler Seguin”
type deal to get the Sharks to the next level.
That means one of these guys will have to be traded, no trade clause or
not Wilson has to find a way to get younger on defense and make room for guys
like Hertl to move up to the top line. I
look at eight names as guys who can bring the kind of return the Sharks need:

Thornton, Marleau, Pavelski, Couture, Vlasic, Braun, Niemi,
and Burns. You could trade Dejardins, or some of the
veterans like Torres, Stuart,Kennedy, or Havlat or even Wingels or Nieto. But none of those guys are going to return
the kind of player the Sharks NEED on the back line. Now before you say “They aren’t going to
trade any of those guys” I’m sure Boston fans thought the same about Seguin and
Peverly. The Bruins pulled the trigger,
just like they did so long ago with Thornton.
You can’t be afraid to make big deals and in Wilson’s case you can’t
make the mistake of throwing away good young talent for guys like Havlat,
Galiardi, and Winnik. I don’t know about you guys but right now I’d
rather have McGinn, Heatley, Setoguchi, and Coyle than Havlat and Burns. I’m not even mentioning the picks and guys in
the minors who still may or may not be NHL players. (well maybe not Heatley) 😉

EDIT: Thanks Marleau the Cat, completely forgot about Bonino….

PS sorry for the disjointed format. I don’t know why a cut and paste from a word doc does this. Maybe one of the techheads that read this board have an answer?

Hockeynut

Hertl isn’t going anywhere unless someone makes a ridiculous offer.

ZEKE

To be fair, Havlat and Burns came here for Heatley, Seto and Coyle. McGinn wasn’t part of those deals.

And as of now, Burns is the best player of that group — only Coyle appears to have the potential to ‘move the needle’ as an impact player among the departeds.

The McGinn trade, as others have noted, was a major head scratcher at the time — and still is. Perhaps the worst part of the McGinn trade is that it created the void that DW has attempted to fill with Burish, Kennedy and perhaps even Raffi. That is $6mil in cap space to replace a guy who is getting less than $2mil — who is better than any of the others players DW has plugged in. Heck, McGinn probably had more points this year than all 3 of those other guys combined.

That said, some trades and signings just don’t work out as hoped. It happens to pretty much every GM.

renoshark

An even bigger question is, why do many of our acquisitions struggle to produce or find a role with this team when they get here? Other than Torres, many of the players we’ve obtained the past few years have struggled mightily. Kennedy, Burish, Burns, Havlat, Handzus, Winnik and Galiardi come to mind. Pretty much all of these guys were more productive and had more of an impact in their roles with their prior teams and were slow to adapt and contribute upon arriving here. Winnik eventually found a productive role on the Wingels/Desi line but it took awhile. The PK unfortunately remained unchanged and still sucked after that trade. The bright spot is Hertl had an impact right away this year and Raffi picked up where he left off last season when he finally came back. Hopefully, that continues and both guys start next season 100%. With more personnel moves to come this off-season it would be nice to see the new players have a bit more of an immediate impact.

MLBSF

Not to mention David Lee fouled out early. So no Jermain O’Neal, no Lee, no Bogut.

MLBSF

Do you think I give a crap what you think?
You should spend more energy complaining about this failure of a team we all root for.

Clemenza

I don’t spend any energy on complaining about anything…I just point out the absurdity of your posts here. If you had anything worth a lick to say, I’m sure you’d say it , but to date, you haven’t…
you just whine & cry for attention by trying to antagonize.

As far as my energy goes, it’s spent in much more constructive ways than coming on here & saying what’s already been said a hundred times about what happened in game 7.

BTW, you saying that you actually root for the Sharks is pretty much the funniest thing I’ve ever read on here.

I really hope this is one of your last shovels of dirt towards digging your own grave here. You’ve been warned, you’ve been put in time out. You said you had an agreement with DP. I have to believe that constantly repeating yourself all day long, day after day, is not part of that agreement. I’m sure your response will just be digging a deeper grave.

You were so insensitive to Rose yesterday, really rude.

Yep, I hear the shovel.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

There are more than a few fans who remember Buster taking a year off, while in uniform, just like Patty did, and Roenick, and any number of players. Memories are deceptive.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

Reno, I think if you actually check the stats of a lot of players, they did much, much better with the Sharks than they did AFTER they left the Sharks. In other words, their most productive seasons were here. Roenick & Heatley had better years before they got here, but in JR’s case, DW brought him in for his toughness. Not a secret. Heater just never got back to being the 50 goal scorer, though he did get on that Olympic team…the one full of choke-artists, oh, they won a gold? Sorry.

Tom (fm Quinzee)

When you’re done comparing apples to oranges, let us know.

As for your technical problems, knowing how to post won’t make you smarter, or right, just simpler to read.

renoshark

Yeah, I would agree that not all had those same issues. It’s just been a troubling pattern recently where the roles and/or production spiked rather than thrived with recent acquisitions. For the team’s overall success going forward, I would like to see that pattern end. And by the way, did you seen Don’s latest suit? Sweet. 😉

This is a complete myth that’s fun to believe but fails a basic stat check. It’s like the “death panels!!” of the NHL.

Beer League Rocks

DP, After you finish your last articles about the locker room clean-out and before you move onto whatever you do this summer, please don’t forget to take out the trash here. If you leave it all summer it’s going to get pretty rank in here. Scott Peterson would be high up on that list. I’m sure you can guess the other one that I would recommend. Either way, have a great summer, and I look forward to some periodic WTC updates over the summer.

Wonderogre

How dare this team not accomplish something they only had a 6.25% chance of doing?!??!! I DEMAND ANSWERS! HURR FART.

Wonderogre

Anyone who says “the problems are not recent” has probably not paid much attention to the team the last two seasons.

dercurt

“If what you want is different than what you have, then you need to change what you are doing”
–Urban Meyer

dercurt

From Alex Smith transcript at the university of Utah graduation commencement speech.

SharksA’sRaiders

With the new playoff system, the Sharks should prepare themselves every year to face LA or Anaheim in round one, or assemble a team designed to defeat them. Getting fat off the Oilers and Coyotes is nice, but if you want to live another day in the 2015 playoffs, you must out coach and outplay the Kings/Ducks. That is the team mission now.

SharksA’sRaiders

A case could be made to bring back the exact same team barring a change or two. A collective band of brothers of sorts that ALL went through this same awful experience and are equally motivated to never let such an embarrassment happen again. Food for thought? A break from “OMG rip the C off Jumbo!!!1″ “Blow up the team!”

renoshark

What’s a myth? Those players hardly had bigger impacts in SJ and some were just downright awful. You could even add Dom Moore to that list.

JasonB

If you look at all the cup winners, the majority tend to be deep defensive teams. IF we want to get to that level, we’re going to need to start building a team that way. Problems to overcome:

Goaltending: Nemo is just too inconsistent. He can be a very high calibre goalie, but then he can let in something stupid on the very next shot. If that were the sum of his faults, i’d say keep him, but i think his worst trait is his stickhandling – it’s just unacceptable at the NHL level. He creates problems on simple shoot ins because he can’t get the puck cleanly to his D. How many times have you seen him try to float a pass to a waiting defenseman only to have him actually flip it past him and into the forechecker. It doesn’t always lead to a goal, but it does lead to considerable time in the D zone, which just saps energy and momentum unnecessarily.

Defense: We need a couple of good solid guys that can check and keep the other team honest. I thought stuart and Hannan could do this role, but it doesn’t look like they can. What we have is Vlassic and Braun. I think Irwin might work out and would like to see more of him. Demers…just needs to get way better, really soon. A while ago, I thought he might be the puck-moving offensive defenseman to replace boyle, but….i dunno, he’s just making so many painful mistakes. I’d like to keep Boyle if we can, at least one season to see if he can recover from that hit he took. I think the odds are against him, but still, i think we owe him that shot. But that leaves us short 2 or 3….

Coaching: I dunno what to say here, but that I’m not convinced McLellan is a good coach. Every year, our systems have issues – this year it was the PP, couple years ago it was the PK, then the breakout, or the entry. It boils down to two things in my mind: 1) if the players are following the systems they’re told to follow, then the system sucks, and the coach is to blame or 2) if the players are not following the systems they’re told to follow, coaching is ineffective and is to blame. Who do we replace him with? That’s tough, i don’t know if there’s any better options.

Hockeynut

You are an annoying person. Do you ever offer any CONSTRUCTIVE criticism or maybe some insight instead of just smart remarks? Seriously dude, there are about five people who need to grow up and you are the sixth one to add to the list.

Hockeynut

Who died and made you message board supervisor?

Toothless

A case cannot be made for that. It’s been made for almost a decade with the exact. same. results.

SharksA’sRaiders

Yep. Impossible to compare basketball to hockey. You can’t accidentally lose a basketball game because the ball bounces off someone’s leg and into the basket. The puck has a mind of its own, regardless of how much effort is put in.

SharksA’sRaiders

Results: 10 consecutive years in the playoffs = good. Three trips to the Western Finals = good. Yes, yes yes I know we all want a Cup and to buy a “Stanley Cup Champs” t-shirt for $34.99, but consistency even getting into the postseason is paramount. The organization can not afford financially to miss playoffs, ever. Not once. SJ lost 5,000 season ticket holders after 2002-03.
The wise thing to do is tweak something here and there and bring back (like it or not) the deepest roster in Sharks history and hope for the best that this loss hardens them more than ever. To help everyone sleep at night: St. Louis Blues-est. 1967: Stanley Cups: 0.

Hockeynut

The point wasn’t the game it was the effort and the “fire” that the two teams showed. Night and day. The Sharks played the possible elimination game (four) with no urgency. They gave the Kings hope. The make up of this team apparently doesn’t understand the concept of “putting your boot on their throat” metaphorically speaking of course.

GP_hockeyhappens

Well, there was a time after G2 that you stayed away from here, I speculated that nobody missed you and cared even if you achieved room temp. So, I guess it wasn’t you that died.

If you followed the rash banning, and then the return, the rash claimed his agreement with included certain things. He’s violated all of them multiple times. So, it was the rash itself that set the rules for his own demise.

MLBSF

Did you know the Sharks have something like the second best overall record in the NHL over the past 10 years, but haven’t even made it to the Cup let alone won it?

All the national sports guys, including some local ones have been going on and on about how the Sharks have earned their reputation as perennial chokers and losers.

renoshark

Agree with you on our D-men. That needs an overhaul(i.e. depth, playmaking and youth infusion). Vlasic and Braun are obvious keepers. I like Irwin and at times I even liked Demers but he was testing my belief in him far too often. Stuart still has another year left on his contract, so he’ll be back as well. Boyle will get another decent payday, come free agency, but it won’t be in SJ. As much as I don’t want to see him go, I think it’s time and of course Hannan will be gone.

With Boyle’s salary dump and an imperative compliance buyout for Havlat we can free up some good cap dollars right there. I expect a possible trade, free agency and the in-house promotion of Tennyson, Mueller or Doherty to hopefully improve our D.

I also think it’s time to part ways with Nemo and promote Stalock to #1. Time to give it to the kid IMO.

I’m ok with TMac getting another season. I thought he did very well considering our injury situation all season(7-games total with our full roster). Sure the PP tanked but that was hardly limited to a SJ problem. The college football quote of, “It’s not always the X’s and O’s, it’s the Jimmies and Joes” also has a direct correlation on any coaching staff. Even ours. I’m generally happy with our lines, assuming Raffi and Hertl are healthy, so let’s improve our D, goaltending, add some good forecheckers and scoring depth and take another run at it.

MLBSF

More name-calling and abuse.

I don’t even give a crap what you have to say as you know.

But what’s so hilarious and hypocritical is you and about two other people here are chronic violators of the rules with all of your name-calling and abuse, but yet you do nothing but and whine for people who are critical of the Sharks to get banned.

And David P. is aware of this.

renoshark

How many legit Cup teams have the Sharks had over those 10-years? There’s obviously varying degrees of good, very good and most importantly Cup good. I think the belief by some that this team has been Cup good all those years is a bit misplaced and unrealistic.

Ronn Sven

Love your analysis on Joe and Patty. This is exactly how I feel about those two, but could never articulate my point like you just did.I believe that the lack of intensity that these two possess sums up the point, while I was probably being a bit too harsh using the lack of leadership and heart. Are not real sharks intense, ferocious and feared! We have not been known as a physically imposing grinding team. I would hope management brings in players of intensity and this becomes the identity of our team.

Ronn Sven

Was it a couple of years ago that we went after Dustin Byfuglien? I thought he would have been a great fit for us. Why could we not or do what it took to sign him ?

CforPavs

I’ll say it MLBSF, you have been right this whole time.

Most of what I feel can be summed up by this… I’ve felt the sharks wouldn’t win a cup with Thornton or Marleau for 3 years now. I stayed away from this blog all year long because all the sympathetics in here would hate on me.

But there’s no getting around this. A historic failure.

My biggest issue with the season though is DW resigning JT and PM and padding their comfy seats in SJ. DW had the chance to gain leverage in their contract situations by keeping the carrot dangled out there. You know they both love SJ and want to come back, so DW could have used that as the fire to maybe poke them with come playoff time.

But no, he fluffed their cushions and they comfortably sat on them til it was all over.

Ronn Sven

We constantly get compared to the Ducks in Kings. And especially the Ducks who came into the league after us and have been to the cup twice, winning it one time.Then obviously management has done a lousy job trying to get this team to the next level and become a playoff winner!

CforPavs

Here’s what I would do,

Dumbo has got to go. He’s to high profile to be demoted and stripped of the c, so he’s gone. Plus he shows no heart until it’s too little too late. He won’t win a cup, not as a leader.

Keep Patricia but get rid of his A. He can be, and is a productive goal scorer, but he’s no leader. Keep him as a piece player, like a Hossa, or an effective Gaborik, or a Nash. That’s what PM is. He’s a compliment to the leaders.

After that, play the kids. Braun, Irwin, vlasic, Tennyson, demers, and Stuart next season on d. If Boyle is a good price he’s a great mentor probly.

Sure would be nice to have coyle and McGinn instead of havlat right about now. But…..

Hertl, couture, pavs, Nieto, Burns, PM, Desi, sheppard, Kennedy, kearns, Torres, and any other hard working kids in the system works for forwards.

Most of all, I just want to see this team meet its potential. That’s what’s so darn frustrating, the under achieving.

Get rid of king underachiever JT.

Ronn Sven

Read Marleau Cat’s post on the lack of intensity of Joe and Patti.

renoshark

Ok, get rid of Thornton and Marleau and replace them with who? Which two replacements out there can we realistically expect to come to SJ this off-season and magically get SJ to the promised land?

renoshark

“The Bruins couldn’t win a Cup with Thornton (for 6.5 years), nor without (for 5.5 years). And given how much further roster turn over that team had after the Thornton trade and before they came within a sniff of even getting out of the second round, the intelligent thing to do is conclude that Thornton probably had little to do with their team not winning the Cup in his time with them.”

Agreed.

ZEKE

To be clear, Coyle and McGinn weren’t traded for Havlat. Havlat was moved for Heatley.

If you’d rather have Coyle over Burns, I could see that. though you’d have a hard time making the case that Coyle is better (or even close) to Burns right now.

As for McGinn, yeah, what can you say. Wilson effectively gave him away.

ZEKE

Of the 5 highest point totals in the league, only 2 remain. COL, SJS and StL are gone. Only BOS and ANA made it to round 2.

Of course, none left the stage in the manner we did.

MLBSF

With whoever anyone gives us. It can’t be any worse.

ZEKE

I’m going to agree to a point. Jumbo for sure and perhaps Marleau would have found deals elsewhere, and quite possibly for more $$. Having those 2 leave town would create a massive void that FA wouldn’t cure.

That said, DW does have a habit of cutting deals when players are doing well, instead of buying low. No doubt, Jumbo and Marleau lowered their value with this series. Boyle is in that spot now, his value is considerably lower than it was a year ago, we’ll see if DW can reel him in at a low cost or will let him walk.

MLBSF

Of course I’m right. And I know you’ve been right too. I remember all of your posts. This collapse is really no surprise.

I was an idiot to have had even one ounce of hope after the Sharks went up 3-0. I should have known better and I learned my lession.